AXIS PROPAGANDA CURRENCY OF WWII

Yugoslavia

Genuine 100 people banknote

German propaganda parody of 100 people banknote

Dr. Pokrajcic illustrates another German propaganda leaflet disguised as currency. He
states:

I have a well-preserved 100 people note found in the Zubci region near
Trebinje, about 40 kilometers from Dubrovnik, in May 1944. It was given to me by a
Partisan courier who took it as a souvenir just after a batch had been airdropped. The
Tchetniks also had spread these fliers on their passage through the villages they
traveled.

In an article in Coins, October 1966, Pokrajcic elaborated further:

The paper money flier worth one hundred people, which is a copy of the old
Yugoslavian dinar note, reads: "Refugee Identity Paper. Warranting freedom, life and
bread for 100 people;" This banknote brings you freedom and saves your life. Come
over to us before it is too late. Save your life while there is still time. Do away with
your commissars and come. [A commissar was a party official in nominal charge of a
partisan military unit].

R. G. Auckland says in Air-Dropped Propaganda Currency, 1972 edition:

On January 26,1944 the German authorities occupying Yugoslavia proclaimed an
amnesty for all partisans who would desert to the German Army. All partisan-held areas
were swamped with leaflets of every size, color and text imaginable.

Among this whirlwind of paper was a copy of the pre-war Yugoslav 100 dinar note. It
was made to appear an original, but a close look would reveal that it had been cleverly
doctored to include propaganda on both back and front. On the front was also the Wehrmacht
seal. The note was, in fact, a safe conduct pass guaranteeing freedom and food for 100
partisans if they surrendered to the German forces with their weapons.

The German parody is of the 100 dinara National Bank of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia note
of 1929, worth "100 ljudi" ("100 people"), bears a safe conduct
messages in Cyrillic declaring "Refugee Identity Paper. Warranting freedom, life, and
bread for 100 people. This banknote brings you freedom and saves your life. Come over to
us before it is too late. Save your life while there is still time. Do away with your
commissars and come." (A Commissar is a Communist Party political officer attached to
a Partisan military unit.) Both sides of the parody are printed in purple, whereas the
genuine note is in pale multicolor with a yellow underprint and has a watermark. The
banknote is dated 26 January 1944, the date of a German amnesty for Partisans who would
surrender to the Germans. The Nazi eagle and swastika appear printed in the watermark area
at right on the front. On the back in the watermark area are instructions in German for
German soldiers. At lower right on the back is a small "PSK-NS", which
identifies the producer as the Propaganda Abteilung Sudost Staffel Kroatien, Nebenstelle
(Subsidiary Office) Sarajevo. The PSK was headquartered in Belgrade, and had branch
detachments in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Dubrovnik, and elsewhere. These safe conduct passes
were air-dropped in occupied Yugoslavia, mainly in Croatia and Slovenia where the Partisan
movement was strongest, and more rarely in Macedonia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. None
was found in Serbia or Montenegro.

It is not a good imitation of the original. The parody has been printed in violet and,
whereas the genuine note is predominately violet, it is also printed with yellow and black
inks. We have seen several variations of this parody. One variety is cleanly printed, and
the shading lines are in general delicately drawn and lightly inked to conform to the
style of the genuine note. This parody exists in two sub-varieties, differing in the
distance between the signature and the small tower on the front. Another variety is more
heavily inked, with some of the shading of the genuine note transformed into solid patches
of ink. We therefore list three varieties; lightly inked, with signature 2 mm from tower,
lightly inked, with signature 5 mm from tower, and heavily inked.

German 10 lire Slovenia

The Germans also copied Yugoslav partisan notes. Schwan and Boling, in World War II
Military Currency, BNR Press, 1978, tell us that the original partisan notes were
sponsored by the Slovenian National Liberation Council and lithographed "in the
woods." Dr. Pokrajcic mentions in Paper Money of the Yugoslav Liberation
Movements that:

I also have an interesting Partisan 10 lire note printed during the People's
LiberationWar in Slovenia in 1944. The White Guardsmen (a Fascist military
formation recruited in Slovenia) and the German command were stunned at the appearance of
Partisan banknotes in a territory they thought they had a strong grip upon.

The people, of course, took great interest in these first Partisan notes. Quickly
spirited away, they foretold of the rapid fall of tyranny and defeat of the invaders. The
Germans and the White Guardsmen then made the same 10 lire note in Ljubljana.

Since the partisan notes were produced under field conditions, the printing is crude.
The German imitation is obviously photographically produced and the face is an almost
perfect copy of the original banknote, except for the color, which is a slightly darker
red. However, on the back of the German note we find the following text in block letters
in dark red on a light blue background:

This bill is valueless, just like the promises from Moscow and London.

The German parodies were disseminated from the middle of 1944 until the liberation of
Slovenia.

It appears that besides producing propaganda parodies of Yugoslav liberation
currency, the Germans also counterfeited some of the notes. More likely it was the other
way around. They were already counterfeiting the notes and had the plates so producing a
propaganda banknote was just going one step further. Because the partisans were
using their own banknotes in the liberated areas their morale was lifted and they were
able to purchase weapons and ammunition. According to Adolf Burger, one of the Jewish
inmate counterfeiters in the Operation Bernhard team, the exact same note as depicted
above was counterfeited by the Germans in an attempt to undermine their reawakening
economies and their war efforts. The counterfeit is depicted in Burgers
German-language book, Unternehmen Bernhard (Operation Bernhard), Edition
Hentrich, Berlin 1992.

In order to undermine the Yugoslav peoples' liberation lone
"tricolored" Tito banknotes were exactly forged in Sachsenhausen. The
reproductions were so exact down to the last detail of paper and print that it was
impossible to distinguish them from the real thing Hundreds of thousands of these
banknotes had already been printed in the forgery workshop to destabilize the currency in
liberated Yugoslavia.

50 dinara Serbian banknote forgery

Sometimes there is doubt about whether or not a banknote is a government-sponsored
forgery. For instance, there is the case of the alleged United States government forgery
of the Serbia 50 dinara Serbian National Banknote of 1 May 1942. I first ran across a
brick of about 100 of these banknotes about 1990. The seller was the wife of a deceased
WWII airman who claimed that the banknotes were government forgeries issued to her husband
when he flew over Yugoslavia. He was to use them to bribe the locals and pay for supplies
if he was shot down. There was no proof of such an operation so I never quite believed the
story. Recently another such note was offered for sale, once again from the estate of a
deceased airman, but from a different part of the country. The background story was
exactly the same. So, although we cannot say for sure that these banknotes were prepared
by the OSS or some other clandestine agency to be used by downed pilots, we can say that
there is some interesting circumstantial evidence. The alleged forgeries are of excellent
quality. In the initial offering the banknotes had the red serial numbers M.0234 / 101 to
M.0234 / 200. The more recent banknote had the serial number M.0234 / 499, which indicates
that it is from the same general printing. One of the very minor differences I noted
between the genuine and forged banknotes are in the issue date on the front, MAJ
1942, in which the crossbar in the A is slanted in the genuine and
perfectly horizontal in the forgery and the number 9 which is broken slightly
in the genuine and perfectly smooth in the forgery. There is a small box at the bottom of
the back of the note and in it the first Cyrillic letter has a break at the bottom left of
the letter ehf, whereas the letter is perfect in the genuine.

The Soviet Union

The Abteilung fur Wehrmacht Propaganda (Propaganda section of the German Army)
of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Army High Command) produced at least three
parodies of Soviet banknotes. Some of these "OKW/WPr" productions are filed in
the German archives at Freiburg. They have been illustrated in the book Heil Beil,
Ortwin Buchbender and Horst Schuh, Seewald Veriag, Stuttgart, 1974.

The notes copied were the 1 Chervonetz 3 and 10 Chervonetsa Russian State Bank Notes of
1937. Each note is a photographic reproduction of the original on the front. The 1
chervonets parody is green instead of the grey found on the genuine. It is hard to
understand how the Germans could make such a mistake. They certainly had adequate time to
determine the proper color. The 3-chervonetsa parody is in the proper red color, but the
serial numbers are printed in black instead of the red of the genuine note. Because of
these errors, the finder could easily identify both. Each bears a safe conduct pass and
propaganda message on the back. The 10 Chervonesta genuine note was printed in dark blue.
60+ years of time and sunlight has bleached the parody into a dull gray printing on
brown crinkled paper. It is impossible to tell what the note looked like when first
printed

Genuine 1 Chervonetz banknote front and back

At the present five different versions of a German propaganda parody of
the 1 chervonetz RussianState Banknote of 1937 with propaganda text on the back are
known, each with a different serial number. The fronts are good reproductions of the
genuine notes. They were prepared by Propaganda Kompanie 680 of the German 20th Mountain
Army (commanded by General E. Dietl), stationed in the far north of Finland.

1 Chervonetz parody, serial # 145275

The first note discovered bore the serial number 145275. It is printed on olive or
greenish paper on the front, and was first depicted in Heil Beil!, (Hail Hatchet!),Buchbender, Ortwin and Schuh, Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, 1974. The leaflet bears the
code number 237-10.43 on the back which implies that it was disseminated in
October 1943. At the lower right on the back is a Nazi eagle and swastika, and the
Cyrillic and German text Passierschein. (Safe ConductPass).
150,000 leaflets were produced in October 1943. There is a 15-line propaganda message on
the back on a grey paper:

10 rubles ... How many things were you able to buy for ten rubles in the old days
and what can you get for it now? The purchasing power of the ruble is getting to be less
and less and soon it will be a worthless piece of paper.

The prices for food items and the necessities of daily life have increased
enormously and the black market in the Soviet Union is flourishing. Party functionaries
and Jews are working dark deals at home while you at the front have to sacrifice your life
for these criminals. Soon you will see the reason, so keep this ten-ruble note. It will
guarantee your safe return to a free Russian after the war. Come to us with this bill and
you will have saved your own life. Hide this bill among the other banknotes in your
wallet. If you have two of these, pass one on to your comrades.

At the lower right are a German eagle and the safe conduct statement Passierschein.

The propaganda term 10 rubles on a 1-chervonetz note is due to the fact that
the chervonetz was originally equal to 10 gold rubles. One chervonetz contained 7.74234
grams of pure gold in theory, but they were not convertible into gold or any equivalent of
gold.

For many years that was the only note known in this series. With the fall of the Soviet
Union much of their wartime archives became available for research.

1 Chervonetz parody front and back, serial # 803535

An almost identical leaflet bearing the serial number 803535 leaflet and coded
237-10.43 on old brown paper with no trace of any color, perhaps an aging effect, was
discovered in Great Britain in October 2000. The propaganda message is identical to 145275
above. At the lower right on the back is a Nazi eagle and swastika, and the
Cyrillic and German text Passierschein. (Safe ConductPass).

1 Chervonetz parody, serial # 178400

A banknote leaflet with serial number 178400 was found on a
cream-colored paper in the late 1990s. Once again the code number is 237-10.43 and the
propaganda message is identical to 145275 above. It appears that these three notes were
all part of the same propaganda campaign and only the serial numbers on the front were
changed. At the lower right on the back is a Nazi eagle and swastika, and the Cyrillic and
German text Passierschein. (SafeConduct Pass). It appears that
this same code number was used with numerous serial numbers. In 2014, another 1 Chervonetz
parody coded 237-10.43 was offered at auction with the serial number 947732.

1 Chervonetz parody, Serial No. 208125

Another German parody of the 1 chervonetz RussianState Banknote of 1937 surfaced in
early 2004. Once again, the front is a good reproduction of the genuine note. This item
may have been prepared by the same Propaganda Kompanie 680 as the previous item, but the
leaflet code is in a different form and the originator of the propaganda note is as yet
unknown.

The note bears the code LA 54 on the back and a boxed safe conduct
message mostly in Cyrillic, and additional text in Cyrillic and German. Eight lines of
Cyrillic text are flanked by the Nazi eagle on the left, and an inverted triangle
containing a rifle implanted in soil inside the triangle on the right.

The symbol was used as part of a propaganda campaign in 1942 that used the slogans
Stalin kaput and Stick the bayonet into the ground. In fact, these
words are found at the end of the last line of the leaflet. The three letters on top of
the triangle are the first letters ofSticky w semlio, ("Stick the bayonet into the
ground." The idea was to tell the Soviet soldier to use the password Stalin
kaput, and not to throw his rifle away but to stick it into the ground upside down
as a historic European sign of surrender.

The propaganda text on the back of the note is:

Safe Conduct Pass - Passierschein [safe conduct pass in Russian and German] This
safe conduct pass may be used for an unlimited number of commanders, soldiers, and
political commissars of the Red Army to come over to the side of the German armed forces,
their allies, the Russian Liberation Army and Ukrainian, Caucasian, Cossack, Turkestan and
Tartar Liberation detachments.

You may also come over to our side without a safe conduct pass. Raise both your
hands high and shout "Stalin Kaput" or "Shtiki V Zemliu." [Bayonet in
the ground].

The term "Red Army" on the leaflet is spelled RKKA and
literally means Raboche-Krestianskaia Krasnaia Armiia," or
"Workers-Peasants Red Army.

At the right of the Russian propaganda text there is a short German language
message:

This safe conduct pass is for commanders, soldiers, and political commissars of
the Red Army.

1 Chervonetz parody, Serial No. 314777

A fifth banknote leaflet with serial number 314777 was found in 2006, inside about
30 buried German propaganda grenades (Gewehr-Propagandagranate) in the Karelia
area on the Finnish Front. The grenades were found in boxes in the wartime positions
of SS division NORD. Each grenade contained about 40-60 leaflets of 11 different
types. The 60-year old leaflet rolls were removed from the rusty grenades, placed into
water, carefully separated and then individually dried. The 17-line text message on the
back is similar to the (10 rubles) message depicted above, but much of the
text has been changed. The code number for this variety is 336-5.44 which indicates it was
disseminated in May 1944.

At the lower right on the back is a Nazi eagle and swastika,
and the Cyrillic and German text Passierschein. (SafeConduct
Pass). The text is:

10 Rubles

How many things were you able to buy for ten rubles in the old days before the
war? And what can you buy for for a chervonetz today? The purchasing power of the ruble is
getting to be less and less and soon it will be a worthless piece of paper.

If you have a bank account in GosBank, then you can put your money in it without
any worries. (Why, the government even asks you to do that in propaganda postcards).
Indeed, you can be sure that GosBank will take care of your money and use it to continue
this war and that you and your comrades will die in this war. And if
you are killed or die then the bank will have no reason to pay back your money.

If you do not have a bank account then you can use your rubles for cigarette
paper. In the Black Market behind the lines, the Kikes and the Communist
Party members are charging such exortbitant prices that you with your rubles will simply
be ridiculed. (1 kilogram butter = 800 rubles!)

But our 10 rubles will retain its value! Use it as a surrender pass
and you will save your health and life, and after the war, whole and sound, you will
return to your native land!

Hide this leaflet in your wallet and use it as soon as possible!

GosBank (the State Bank of the USSR) was the Soviet Union's monobank. Characteristic
of command economies, monobanks combine central and commercial banking functions into a
single state-owned institution. The savings banks played a large role in funding Russia's
involvement in World War II. Not only did they provide loans to the war effort, they also
accepted donations from the people for the defense effort and sold tickets for
government-run lotteries that raised money for the war. In the leaflet above, the Germans
warn the Russians that the money they are placing in Gosbank will all be lost.

Genuine 3 Chervonetsa banknote

3 Chervonetsa parody

The 3 chervonetsa Russian State Banknote of 1937 with propaganda text on the back bears
the serial number 960070 and has the following Russian-language message:

Murdered by Bolsheviks! (1917-1944).

Years of revolution and civil war (1917-1923) 2,200,000 killed. 14,500,000 people
starved to death (1918-21 and 1932-33). 10,000,000 were killed in hard labor camps.
6,688,000 were killed during punitive campaigns. 3,270,000 were killed in the border areas
conquered by the Russians. 18,000,000 were killed or disabled during the Second World War
(1941-44).

Total: 54,665,000. 12,000,000 people have already escaped from Bolshevik liquidation by
surrendering to our forces. Take this paper and save your life before it is too late.

If the reader is confused by the various spellings of the denomination, these notes are
also known as Tchervontzi, Chervonetz, Chervonca, Chervonec, Tscherwonez and Karbowanez.

This leaflet banknote is coded 345-6.44. Once again we find the German Eagle at lower
right and the word "Passierschein." The Germans printed 150,000 of the banknotes
in June 1944.

A German official production document of propaganda material prepared between June 15
and 30, 1944 states that 150,000 of the "3 Tscherwonzen-Schein Nr. 345" were
printed. The letter mentions that the Luftwaffe had as yet disseminated none of the
leaflets. Propaganda Kompanie 680 of the German 20th Mountain Army prepared the
letter. We find more information about this unit in Das Tonende Erz, Ortwin
Buchbender, Seewald Veriag, Stuttgart, 1978.

This book, which is the history of the German propaganda campaigns against the Soviet
Union in World War II, shows PK 680 being stationed in the far north in the area of
Lapland. Its headquarters were in Rovaniemi, Finland. At the time the banknotes were
printed, a "Propaganda-Kompanie" was made up of 23 officers, 38 non-commissioned
officers and 60 enlisted men. This is one of the few times that we can positively identify
the makers of a wartime propaganda banknote.

Genuine 10 Chervonetsa RussianState Banknote

10 Chervonetsa parody

The 10 chervonetsa RussianState Banknote of 1937 first appeared in early 2006. It
bears the serial number 480292 and has the following long Russian-language propaganda
message on the back:

Soviet fighter; read this small leaflet attentively. We do not wish to agitate
 your knowledge will convince you of the facts.

The War between the USSR and Germany has surpassed a war of attrition. You see
it.

We have an old spiteful enemy  England. We know that it is in no hurry to
open a second front, but still, England is preparing to intrude into Europe.

Whether there will be an intrusion or not, the OUTCOME OF THIS WAR will be
decided for Germany NOT BY FIGHTING WITH THE USSR, BUT BY FIGHTING A DECISIVE BATTLE WITH
ENGLAND. We should prepare for it.

As to our Eastern Front; for Germany it is unimportant if the battle lines are
200 or 300 meters to the west or the east. It is more important that we await the day when
Stalin exhausts his forces. And, this day is near. Stalin ordered the death of the unique
Soviet General Vatutin  not a bootlicker who was afraid to speak the truth  on
the operating table.

 to continue this war, means in the name of a doubtful opportunity of
a victory over Germany, to sell our country to full dependence on Anglo-American
capitalism 

So declared Valutin to Stalin in January of this year.

Will the forces of Stalin suffice to survive for another year?

The income of the Soviet Union in 1944 was 250 billion rubles.

The total cost of the war in 1944 will be 250 billion rubles.

The total sum of just American supplies delivered to Stalin up to November of
last year is 3.5 billion gold dollars.

(All these figures are taken from the Moscow newspaper Truth. Read
the reports of the last session of the Supreme body of the USSR in Zvereva and
Roosevelts report to the United States Congress.).

The gold dollar costs approximately 50 Soviet rubles. WHAT IS THE GOLD DOLLAR
 YOU SHOULD KNOW! Remember the Torgsinovskie prices.

If you estimate the cost of the gold dollar as 50 paper rubles, the sum of
Stalins debt by November 1 of last year is already 175 billion rubles.

There is a total of 303 billion owed on the war and just over 250 billion in
annual income.

And how do we pay for schools, hospitals and homes for invalids. How will we pay
the salaries of those workers and employees? Where will we get the money to pay the
families of the Red Army troops?

1 kilogram of bread used to cost 70 rubles in Sverdlovsk. A family with five
children receives over 200 rubles. And today? And what will it be in a half a year?

In fact, the bread deliveries of 1944 have already been made by the collective
farmers (we know about it from your newspapers).

We can wait.

The hour of decision will come!

The war will end only after the destruction of Bolshevism.

No compromises are possible.

Do not die in vain. Do not vainly support the regime of Stalin which is doomed
for destruction.

Help to destroy it! Refuse to protect it.

Stalins death will save Russia.

Stalins enemies  our friends.

The German Command

964/V. 44.

The code number implies that this leaflet was prepared in May of 1944.

Hungary

German parody of a Hungarian 100 pengo

There is also an alleged German parody of a Hungarian 100 pengo Russian occupation
banknote. The banknote has the serial number CA 1717 in red on the front and the
propaganda text on the back:

It is only a piece of paper. It is worthless, just like the one the Red Army
authority hands out to the people of occupied Hungary. It is obvious that this paper has
no value or purchasing power. Are you going to work for such worthless paper? Are you
going to give the fruits of your labor for such worthless paper? You must help fight
against it, so that your race, the Hungarian people, will not be destroyed. Fight with
your words, your heart and your guns!

There has been some conjecture that this note could have been produced after the war as
anti-communist propaganda. However, it was originally found in a large cache of German
WWII propaganda currency, and until proven otherwise, should be considered of wartime
origin.

Germany

The German "Parachute" note

The Germans produced two propaganda currency notes for their own people. The first is
an imitation of a German 50 mark note dated March 30, 1933 with serial number FI4712590.
The only known specimen of this parody was discovered in the area of Zuften town (Holland)
on the River Ijsel in the spring of 1945. This leaflet was probably prepared for German
military personnel in an attempt to counter successful Allied propaganda currency
leaflets.

On the face of the banknote the word Falschgeld (forgery) has been printed in
large letters.

On the back there is a long German-language message:

ATTENTION!

Paratroopers, this pertains to you. For some time forged currency has circulated
at the front and in the homeland. You are expressly warned against accepting or passing
this currency.

BIG REWARD!

Who are the forgers? Where is their workshop? How do you recognize forged money?
What will your reward be?

The head of the forgery gang is Josef Stalin, born 21.12.1879 in Tiflis/Kaukasus.
Religion: Godless. Special characteristics: Unquenchable thirst for blood.

The political forged money workshop is located in the Reuter News Agency in London,
with branches in all the Jewish poison kitchens of the world. The characteristics of the
forged currency are short-lived paper bills with deceptive promises to blind and dazzle
simpletons or with exaggerated announcements and threats to scare timid hearts.

Do not let yourself become confused!

They are all lies which are whispered into your ear by the enemy. Remember well: the
truth comes from Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler fights for freedom, bread and work. The forged
money comes from the enemy. Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and their stooges bring us
poverty and death.

Keep faith with the fuhrer! Adolf Hitler is the guarantor of your future.

YOUR REWARD IS VICTORY.

Designed and printed by Army Cartographic Office. Paratrooper A.O.K. [Army High
Command.]

The message is all black print, except for the capitalized text, which is in red. There
are some interesting questions in regard to this banknote. The British did not forge
German currency. They did produce parodies with messages on the back. It is likely that it
is the 50 pfennig notes with anti-Hitler propaganda on the back that the parachute command
is complaining about. Readers will find information on these parodies in the companion
article, WW II Allied Propaganda Banknotes. The
comment: "they are all lies. . . " would indicate that it is the messages on the
money that bothers the high command, not the forging of the notes. However, it is possible
that by coincidence, the Germans produced this anti-forgery leaflet in regard to an
emergency banknote that had been "legally" forged by their own people. According
to Schwan and Boling, World War II Military Currency, BNR Press, 1978:

Near the end of the war (1944) the Reichsbank offices in Graz. Linz and Salzburg
were forced to produce emergency currency. Three Reichsmark notes were reproduced from
completed pieces. All have blurred printing; the serial numbers are constant for each
denomination.

10 Reichsmark

Other postwar sources have credited the local army commander, Schorner, as the sponsor
of the emergency currency. Three notes were reproduced in the denominations of 10, 50 and
100 Reichsmarks. This could be a complete coincidence, but it is possible that the Germans
ran across these "bogus" notes and not having knowledge of the currency
emergency in Austria, accused the Allies of forgery. There is no evidence to back such a
theory. The reader must decide if the connection exists.

The second German propaganda currency parody aimed at their citizens was an enlarged
imitation of the 500-milliarden-mark Reichsbank note of 26 October 1923. The imitation is
145 x 84mm., whereas the genuine is 138 x 65mm. The color of the genuine note is tan at
the left, changing to green at the right. On the parody, an attempt has been made to match
these colors, but the contrast has been lost and the general appearance of the face is
tan-green. In order to fill the enlarged area of the parody, the text on the face has been
stretched out by double-spacing.

These mock banknotes were used as part of an anti-Semitic exhibition which appeared in
Vienna from December 12, 1943 to February 29, 1944. It was once believed that these were
tickets to the show, but the text indicates that they were prepared as flyers
(advertisements) or souvenirs. Dr. Alan York, writing in TheShekel,
July-August, 1984, shows a banknote customized by the addition of two Hitler-head postage
stamps and the show cancel, "Wien Messepalast/Austellung 1918/15.1.44."

Vienna anti-Semitic Exhibition 1918 Green

This propaganda note has been found in two varieties, distinguished by the backs, which
are found in either tan or green. Part of the propaganda message on the back reads:

Funfhundert Milliarden Reichsmark = 500,000 Millions = 500,000,000,000 RM. This
bought one loaf of bread during the inflation caused by uninhibited Jewish speculation.
The loss of all savings, unemployment, hunger and misery were the consequences of the
"just peace of freedom and independence" as promised by our English and American
"friends". . .

The Great Exhibition 1918 shows from original documents and photographs the
origins and consequences of the collapse of 1918. It also demonstrates most convincingly
that in this war the results of the year 1918 must not occur again. We will pursue this
war to ultimate victory. Every Viennese must see Exhibition 1918."

There is a footnote at the bottom that states that tickets may be
obtained at various NSDAP (Nazi Party) Offices. General admission was 50 pfennigs for the
public, 40 pfennigs for Nazi Party members.

Operation Bernhard

German counterfeit 5 pound note

We should very briefly mention what has been called the greatest counterfeiting
operation of all time, Operation Bernhard. This was not a propaganda campaign, although
the very same people who prepared the banknotes were also involved in a PSYOP campaign to
parody British postage stamps with Communist and Jewish symbols. Operation Bernhard was
instead, a secret German plan devised during World War II to destabilize the British
economy by flooding the country with forged Bank of England £5, £10, £20, and £50
notes of 1934.

This was not the first wartime attempt to counterfeit the money of Great Britain. In
1939, Reinhard Heydrich decided to destroy the economy of Britain by flooding it with fake
banknotes. He authorized Operation Andreas, commanded by SS Major Alfred
Naujocks, who was given a budget of 2 million Reichsmarks. His technical director was Dr.
Albert Langer. In April 1940, the never-patient Reinhard Heydrich ordered Naujocks to
counterfeit Norwegian currency, and when told that the effort would at least four months,
he fired Naujocks.

The plan was code-named Operation Andreas because the British flag bore
the Cross of St. Andrew. The Germans thought that it looked like an X. In the
same way they wanted to strike through the value of the pound, thus making it worthless.

Heydrich did not want to use criminals to make the banknotes, and as a result the
plan never went into full production. By early 1942, Langer claimed that his Operation
Andrew unit had produced 200,000 five-pound notes and 200,000 ten-pound notes. The project
lacked the skilled labor force necessary to go into mass production, and as a result of
internal squabbling among Nazi SS officials, Operation Andrew sputtered to a halt. It is
probably just as well. Reichsbank Minister Funk stated that the plan was untenable and he
could see no way to deliver the banknotes to England. Operation Bernhard also refused
to use criminals preferring to use Jewish concentration camp inmates until the need for a
counterfeit U.S. banknote eventually brought a professional counterfeiter into the fold.

The paper for the counterfeits was originally prepared at the Hahnemuhle paper mill
near Dassel.

SS Major Bernhard Kruger

The second and far more successful plan was directed by, and named after, SS Major
Bernhard Kruger, who set up a team of 142 counterfeiters at the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp. The Germans scoured the Concentration Camps for Jewish printing
experts. A memorandum to Camp Commanders said:

Recruitment of Jewish Prisoners

Prisoners in the camp who are qualified in the printing trade such as paper
manufacturing printers or suitable craftsmen are to report to me immediately.

The research on, and production of the British banknotes began in 1942. The major
problem was the engraving of the complex printing plates and the breaking of the British
code used to generate valid serial numbers. One of the experts on the team was Salamon
Smolianoff, a Russian who had been forging British 50-pound notes since 1927 and who had
been arrested and jailed in Amsterdam for counterfeiting. Another was Adolf Burger, a
Slovakian Jew who had been trained as a printer. According to Burger, who wrote two books
about his experiences, the forgers at Sachsenhausen also successfully copied the U.S. $100
bill.

In The Devil's Workshop he says in part:

In September 1944 Kruger appeared in his forgery workshop and announced.
Gentlemen from today we are going to produce dollars too.

There were special rooms set aside for the dollar group. New machines and different
paper arrived from Berlin. Soon after Kruger brought in real $50 and $100 bills and gave
them to Jacobson the foreman.

The eight of us worked in isolation from the other prisoners. No one else was allowed
to enter the three rooms in the back part of that block.

The last project in the forgery workshop was production of $50 and $100 bills. Only two
hundred $100 bills were printed.

Kruger told Himmler of the success by phone and assured his boss that everything was
ready now for the production of forged dollars.

"A million forged dollars a day are to be produced working in two 19-hour
shifts." It was then 12 February 1945.

But before production could start Berlin was being attacked by the Allies.

Burger says that an order from the Reich Security main office ordered the work to stop
the machinery to be dismantled

SS Major Bernhard Kruger in Postwar British Captivity

Most references to Bernhard Kruger tell of him driving away from the concentration
camp with a satchel full of counterfeit money at wars end. In fact, Kruger was
arrested first by the French who held him for about two years trying to convince him to
forge for them, and then by the British who questioned him in depth about his wartime
counterfeiting. When I interviewed Kruger in the 1950s he was a very bitter man who felt
he had been mistreated by the allies. In fact, as a former SS officer, he probably got off
much lighter than he should have.

Burger also says in regard to the dollar project that the inmates selected to
counterfeit the U.S. dollar were Solomon Smolianoff, Norbert Levy (chief of the
photographic department), Abraham Jacobson (director of the copy department), Adolf Burger
(typographer) and Leonard and Roger Weill (retouchers). The painters Leo Haas and Peter
Edel would assist them as needed.

In a top secret interrogation after the war Jacobson stated that he started forging
U.S. dollars in May 1944. He claims they planned to print $50 and $100 bills, and although
5000 pieces were made, they were never numbered or left the plant. It seems that every one
of the counterfeiters told a different story after the war and since there probably was
some compartmentalization, it may be that they are just telling us the rumors
that they heard from each other.

The main problem was to find an adequate printing method. Genuine dollar notes were
printed in what Burger callstiefdruckverfahren, which
can be translated as engraved (intaglio) printingbut the inmates did not
have the correct type of printing press. It was decided instead to print the notes in the Lichtdruck
process. This method uses a glass plate that is covered with light-sensible gelatin layer
on which the film negative is exposed. No screening is necessary to reproduce halftone
pictures, but only up to 1.000 copies can be printed from one plate. A typical feature of
this seldom used printing process is the wrinkled grain that is seen instead of screen
dots under a magnifying glass. Burger claims that they attempted to counterfeit $50 and
$100 banknotes with the Lichtdruck process. He says that only two-hundred copies of
the $100 note were printed.

I probably should not editorialize since this article is entirely factual, but I
feel that I must make some comments here. The vast majority of the information about this
operation comes from former Jewish concentration camp inmate counterfeiters. They lived in
relatively good conditions while all around them their fellow inmates died of starvation,
disease and ill treatment. There probably is survivor guilt. In addition, the inmates were
helping their sworn enemies win the war. We understand why they acted as they did, but
they were by definition, collaborators. As a result, many of the inmates now talk about
how they fought the Germans and sabotaged their efforts, and Burger, in his autobiography,
becomes practically a one-man sabotage machine. I think we need to be very critical when
we read these reports and ask ourselves if they are totally reliable. In the various
interviews you will read that no $100 bills were printed, the backs of some $100 bills
were printed, One-hundred or two-hundred $100 bills were printed, and perhaps even $20 and
$50 bills were worked on. It is difficult to know what really happened.

The German-language movie Die Falshers (The Counterfeiters) based on
Burgers book depicted the inmates handing Major Kruger forged American banknotes.

By the time Sachsenhausen was evacuated in April 1945, according to Chief Inspector
(later Chief Superintendent) William Rudkin of the London Metropolitan Police, the
printing presses there had produced 3,945,867 £5 pound notes, 2,398,981 £10
pound notes, 1,337,335 £20 pound notes and 1,282,902 £50 pound notes for a
total on £134,610,945 pounds. The Germans used them all over Europe for espionage and
covert operations, purchased weapons with them from partisan bands, and even paid their
spy "Cicero" in the British embassy in Turkey with the counterfeits. The notes
are considered the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, being extremely difficult to
distinguish from the real thing. The best grade was used by German spies in enemy
countries and for purchases in friendly or neutral countries. The second best grade was
for collaborators and informers. The third grade would have been dropped over the British
countryside to destroy its economy. This never happened because it was impossible to
produce enough notes to destroy an economy, and worse, it would tip off the British that
their notes were being counterfeited. The last grade was destroyed.

Did the Germans really counterfeit U.S. currency? Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
inmates were interviewed at the end of the war at the SeventhArmyInterrogationCenter.
Two Jewish prisoners, Jacob Goldglass and Henrik Fajermann stated on 20 May 1945 that the
counterfeiting team that had produced millions of fake British pounds had planned to
counterfeit American banknotes late in the war. The secret report stated:

The camp had thirteen machines for the production of British pound notes and two
machines for the production of American dollar bills. The latter could not be produced
because of the lack of suitable paper.

Hans Walter, one of the original Bernhard forgers spoke of his experiences in 2009.
There was not much new in his comments, but it is nice to have facts verified by one of
the forgers. He said that barracks 19 was sealed off from the remainder of the camp and
there was no contact with the other prisoners. The Camp Commandant was not even aware of
the work being done there.

His job was to inspect the forged notes and to put them into one of five categories
(not four as mentioned elsewhere in this article). Has believed that the best notes,
category one, were for shipment to England (through Chicago and Switzerland). The next
grade was to be sent to the English colonies. The third grade was to be used in sabotage
operations at the front and in Africa and Egypt. Grade four notes were to be dropped over
England to disrupt the economy and the poorest of the forgeries were discarded.

Hans said that Bernhard Kruger would come to visit once or twice a week. The hardest
portion of the British note to copy was "Britannia" because of the large amount
of details in the figure. There were no secret marks applied to the notes and none of the
prisoners ever got any of the forgeries out of the camp.

After successfully forging the English notes, Hans said that his fellow prisoners set
about to make U.S. one hundred dollar bills. The green color of the ink created a problem
but that was overcome. To complete the process would have resulted in the gas chamber so
the prisoners decided to slow the project. Hans said that in mixing the ink he added a
little machine oil to the mixture so that when the green ink dried some of it would come
off when rubbed by a finger. Kruger took notes to a German printer to try to solve the
problem but they could not.

It was also planned to produce American dollars. Section 6-F-4 already possessed the
necessary engraving plates but had not been able to produce a satisfactory paper. The
paper on hand was much too stiff and had other failings.

We know that part of the block 18 dormitory was cleared for the dollar workshop in
May 1944. There is a theory that Kruger was willing to have the project linger on since a
successful ending or total failure meant his inmates would be executed and he might find
himself on the Eastern Front facing the Russians. As a result, the dollar project
stretched on and on. Anthony Pirie says in Operation
Bernhard, William Morrow and Company, NYC, 1961:

Early in January 1945, Kruger received a phone call from Sachsenhausen. Soon
afterwards, in Block 19, he was minutely examining the first run of the new dollar notes
 a hundred samples of the hundred-dollar bill.

Burke adds in Nazi Counterfeiting of British Currency During World War II, The
Book Shop, San Bernardino, CO, 1987:

On the 6th of January 1945, a selection of notes was shown to Himmler in which,
it is said, he could not separate the genuine from the copies. The engraving was much
harder than for the simple Bank of England notes, but the numbering system proved to be
quite easy to break Some of the prisoners involved thought that about 200 of the $100
notes were printed. McNally [a U.S. Army major who had served in the American Secret
Service and was appointed to Germany after the war to protect the occupying forces from
counterfeit currency], in his investigation, estimated about 6,000

Within two days they had printed what Smolianoff [the one true criminal
counterfeiter in the group  known by a dozen aliases] judged a pretty fair
copy of the back of a hundred dollar bill. Across a table the Dollar Group spread fifteen
genuine greenbacks with their fake demonstration bill. Without a magnifying glass, it was
hard even for the forgers themselves to distinguish the counterfeit.

The group then started work on the front of the $100 note and after a week they had
a suitable $100 counterfeit note. The inmates were ordered to produce one million dollars
of U.S. currency a day.

Late in 1943 it was decided to counterfeit U.S. currency By late fall
1944the reverse of the $100 bill was finished, approved and retouching began on the face.
Twenty $100 bills were producedwhich passed
inspection except for the U.S. date and serial number which had not yet been solved. The
paper had finally been imitated but due to the bombings the factory could not produce the
quantity needed. The U.S. $100 bill never went into production. The plates were destroyed.

The Counterfeit specialist Murray Teigh Bloom, author of seven books on currency,
wrote in an International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence article
entitled Uncle Sam: Bashful Counterfeiter that the Germans attempted to
counterfeit a U.S. $20 note. He says that the operation proceeded so slowly that it was
never completed. I have seen no other evidence of this denomination being counterfeited.

So, although there is no evidence of the German counterfeits ever being put into
circulation, there are numerous written references to them being printed.

In the dark recesses of Barracks 19 at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a
German SS officer examines a sample of counterfeit U.S. currency being manufactured for
distribution in an effort to undermine the economy of the United States. Unbeknown to
Hitler and his cohorts, the scheme would never reach fruition as the conspiracy would be
thwarted by an allied victory in Europe.

What is interesting about the painting from the artist known for his historical
accuracy is that it depicts a counterfeit $50 banknote, one that was never counterfeited
by the Jewish inmates in the camp. Only the $100 note was counterfeited, as reported in
the classified Secret December 1945 Czechoslovakian Ministry of the Interior Report on Forgery in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
Translated to English it says in part:

Kruger brought in about fifty 100 dollar bank notes For whole months
the work did not produce satisfactory results Faults could be seen in the application
of color. At other times they filed to achieve the right tone of green for the reverse
side of the 100 dollar notes. 220 experiments were made altogether until at the end of
December 1944 they were able to begin on the production of the bank notes But
although the prisoners had an ultimatum from Himmler to manufacture dollars, the actual
production was never carried out Altogether about 200 one hundred dollar bank notes
were printed. These were left in the camp.

John K. Cooley says in Currency Wars, Skyhorse Publishing, NYC, 2008:

Kruger turned over some genuine $50 and $100 notes to copy The SD leadership
had originally demanded that the team produce 200 perfect $100 specimens On the two
hundred and fiftieth attempt The result was twenty-four perfect $100 counterfeits.
During the same night, the team printed the required 200 bills, face value $20,000.

Fifty and hundred dollar notes and produced the first examples by the end
of 1944 when the first dollars were delivered in early 1945, they were turned down
because of defective paper

Moritz Nachtstern talks about his experiences as a forger in Sachsenhausen and says
that there were $50 bills produced in Counterfeiter  how a Norwegian Jew survived
the holocaust, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, U.K., 2008. The counterfeiters talk about
their work at different times:

We will soon begin the manufacture of 50-dollar bills en masse. I swear old Uncle
Sam is going to be so bloated with dollar bills that he will burst

It wont be long and youll see a 50-dollar bill that beat everything
in the industry. It will be my lifes masterpiece

Are you completely finished with it? Does it look good? You should have seen
Kruger. He embraced me and carried on like a maniac. I can tell you this men; if anyone
has produced a better 50-dollar bill than mine, he has not been discovered.

So, at least three authors believed that the Germans attempted to counterfeit a U.S.
fifty dollar bill. Perhaps Mort Kunstler got the idea from Hottl.

Mort Kunstler and Author

In 2006 the author was asked to display and explain American
and foreign weapons and uniforms as part of an exhibition of Mort Kuntsler's
military paintings.

Operation Bernhard seems to be the story that lives on forever. On 18
August 2011 a set of the four counterfeit notes was auctioned in Great Britain. The four
banknotes were recovered from Lake Toplitz in Austria and estimated at 2,000 pounds. That
seems rather steep because generally a set can be bought for less than half that amount. I
assume the auctioneer thought that the Lake Toplitz provenance made them more valuable.

Many experts have stated that the British did not know that their banknotes were
counterfeited by the Germans until after the war. In fact, the British did know because
they were regularly arresting Nazi spies and the Germans had paid some of them with
Bernhard counterfeits. In February 2012 the British National Archives released documents
on the discovery of counterfeit banknotes found in the possession of Nazi spies. The
documents say in part:

According to information given by Alfred Naujocks, who gave himself up in November
1944, the Germans started to forge these notes in 1940 with the object of scattering them
over the country from the air at the time they were invading the British Isles, in order
to cause a loss of confidence and general confusion.

[These are clearly the early attempts and not the later Bernhard counterfeits].

In September 1943, the German spy Tricycle arrived with 500 five pound notes, 152
of which were counterfeits. In March 1944, the spy Treasure was found with 30 ten pound
notes, 23 of which were counterfeits.

[It appears that in some cases one section of German intelligence was selling
counterfeits in Lisbon to raise funds and another section was buying the counterfeits that
they believed were genuine and paying spies with that currency. We cannot be sure if the
Germans intended to give the spies the fake money or not. We also notice that the British
watched every banknote in foreigners hands and traced them back to the point of
origin trying to decide if the banknote had somehow come into German hands and was being
used to pay spies].

This concludes our discussion of German propaganda aimed at the United States and
Europe. There are other banknote-leaflets allegedly produced, but none has been seen at
present. For instance, Murray Teigh Bloom states in The Brotherhood of Money, BNR
Press, Port Clinton, Ohio, 1983, that "the Germans planned to take French currency
plates with them when they retreated." Allegedly this plot was foiled when the French
gave the Germans deformed and faulty plates. Bloom says: "The Germans used the
deformed plates to make propaganda notes - a seeming French note on one side and on the
other a message urging French soldiers and 'maquis (Partisans)' to surrender." These
alleged surrender passes are unknown and it is probable that the leaflets in question are
those that pictured the 5-franc AMG note we mention above.

Burger claims that his Counterfeiting team forged Soviet currency and NKVD papers:

We made almost everything; Soviet rubles, and in a smaller quantity, Soviet
documents. I remember once we had to falsify 200 identity cards of the Soviet
Peoples Commissariat Security employees.

Jacobson adds that the Germans intended to counterfeit French 25 franc notes but
they never produced any. He was ordered to counterfeit currency of the Netherlands but
convinced his bosses that it was too difficult.

Chinese Pro-Japanese Propaganda

The Japanese Army regularly produced propaganda leaflets in an attempt to sway the
patriotism of the Chinese National Army and the guerrillas. The pro-Japanese Chinese
collaborationist government took part in a series of propaganda operations against the
legitimate Chinese government and the guerrillas that helped it.

Genuine Central Bank of China 1 yuan note of 1936 (front)

Parody of Central Bank of China 1 yuan note of 1936 (back)

The first parody of a Chinese banknote was a lithographed full-color replica of the
Central Bank of China 1 yuan note of 1936 with a safe conduct pass in brown on the back.
The serial number 558829 N/E appears on both front and back. The pass is dated 1936 in
Arabic numerals on the back and the date in Chinese on the front is MK25 (1936). This was
the original safe conduct pass. This note is also known with a slightly modified text and
different serial number.

The safe conduct message appears as nine vertical lines of Chinese text in a central
boxed area, flanked on the left by a circular area containing one vertical line of six
Chinese characters and on the right by a circular scalloped area containing one vertical
line of six Chinese characters. Above the central boxed area is a horizontal arced banner
line of five Chinese characters; below the central area is a horizontal straight line of
eleven characters. The text is:

Safe conduct pass for military troops

Welcome to the forces of peace Guarantee of safe
passage

Prior to the Official Announcement of the Military Committee, this Safe Conduct
Pass has been made for those who intend to join the peace reconstruction movement of the
New Central Government. There has been an understanding with the front-line troops of the
Japanese Army. Please show this Pass to the sentries of the Japanese Army to obtain
protection and the means to join the New Central Government.

Military Committee, National Government, Nanking

The note is described in World War II Remembered, C. Frederick Schwan and Joseph
E. Boling, BNR Press, 1995.

The Nanking Nationalist Government with Wang Ching-wei as President was a
collaborationist carbon copy of the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek. The
Japanese puppet government in Nanking copied the names of bureaus and agencies in an
attempt to appear legitimate. However, the genuine Chinese government did not have a
Military Committee. The term "peaceful reconstruction movement" was a direct
counter-propaganda slogan to the nationalist "reconstruction through the war of
resistance movement."

The second variety of this note was described in Oriental Affairs, March
1941. The text is mostly the same with some variation perhaps caused by translation but
the propaganda text at the sides of the note is described as:

Welcome to take part in peace - To safeguard your life.

The article states that the note was produced by The Headquarters of the
Pacifying Forces in Kiangsu, Chekiang and Anhwei Province. In addition:

The forged notes are stated to have been freely distributed among villagers in
the countryside

Genuine Central Bank of China 5 Fen

5 Fen parody

The Japanese collaborationists then proceeded to take the propaganda message on the
back of the original banknote and reproduce it on the currency of other banks. The first
copy is a green replica of Central Bank of China 5 fen (5 cents) note of 1939 with a safe
conduct pass in green on the back, reduced in size to fit the smaller size of this note.
Curiously, they copied the serial number along with the text so this note is also 558829
N/E on the back with no serial number on the front. The pass is dated 1936 in Arabic
numerals on the back; the date in Chinese on the front is MK28 (1939).

The Ward D. Smith and Brian Matravers book Chinese Banknotes, Shirjieh
Publishers, Menlo Park, CA, 1970, is the Bible of Chinese numismatics. They
say in regard to the 5 fen note:

[The 5 cents] also exists with a slightly larger but otherwise identical obverse,
but with a reverse dated 1936. It was issued by the Nanking Government Military Affairs
Committee as a form of safe conduct pass to encourage defections from the Chinese
nationalist military.

The Chinese also parodied the Farmer's Bank of China 1 chiao (10 cents)
note of 1937 with safe conduct pass in blue on the back. The serial number appears on both
front and back. The pass is dated 1936 in Arabic numerals on the back; the date in Chinese
on the front is MK26 (1937). The text is identical to the preceding two banknotes.

A Second Parody of Farmer's Bank of China 1 chiao (10 cents)

There are two versions of the Farmer's Bank of China 1 chiao (10 cents) note of 1937
with safe conduct pass in blue. Once again the serial number appears on both front and
back. This pass is a modified reprint of the preceding item. The pass is dated 1942 in
Arabic numerals on the back; the date in Chinese on the front is MK26 (1937). Besides the
difference in date, there is a slight difference in the text in the central box: the last
(leftmost) line has only five Chinese characters rather than six, and the two references
to the "New Central Government" have been changed to "Nanking
Government."

As stated earlier, there is a second pro-Japanese safe conduct pass on the Bank of
China 1 yuan note of 1936 that we depict above. This note is dated 1936 in Arabic numerals
on the back and the date in Chinese on the front is MK25 (1936). This second variety has
the serial number 267355 N/H on the front and back. The front is identical to the genuine
banknote,

This version has the serial number 267355 N/H on the front and back. The front is
identical to the genuine banknote, and once again the safe conduct message is on the back.
This pass has the same structure as those in the preceding listing, and bears similar
texts with some minor changes and additions. The central boxed area in this pass now
contains ten vertical lines and translates to:

Safe conduct pass for military troops

Welcome to the forces of peace
Guarantee of safe passage

Prior to the Official Announcement of the Military Committee, this Safe Conduct
Pass has been made for those who intend to join the peace movement of the New Central
Government. There has been an understanding with the front-line troops of the Japanese
Army and the Pacification Army. Please show this Pass to the sentries of the Japanese Army
or the Chinese Army to obtain protection and the means to join the New Central Government.

Pacification Army of Kiangsu, Chekiang, and Anhwei Provinces

This second variety is illustrated and discussed in Oriental Affairs 15, 3
(March 1941).

In Battle Hymn of China, Knopf, NY, 1943, Author Agnes Smedley mentions a
banknote safe conduct pass dropped over the north bank of the lower Yangtze River, an area
occupied by the Communist New Fourth Army:

Another handbill looked like a banknote except that the reverse side explained the
procedure for desertion. It urged guerrillas to bring their rifles. Halt at least 200 feet
away from a Japanese garrison and wave a white flag. Next all should lay their rifles on
the earth, then, with arms uplifted, approach the Japanese sentry one by one to be
searched for concealed weapons. After that a life of ease would be theirs!

Japanese Overprint on Malaya Currency

The Japanese defeated and occupied British Malaya in 1942 and printed occupation
currency for their use. For some unknown reason they placed a propaganda message on the
back of this 1944 $100 dollar banknote.

At the right there is a red circle hand-stamp that means: verified.

The text is read from top to bottom, right to left, written in a poetic style
where it rhymes, with five characters per line.

It is easy to catch a tiger in the jungle [can also be high mountain]
It is hard to find someone to lend you money.If you have no savings You will have a big problem.Greater Japan [can also be Empire of Japan]Malayan Finance Department

A square red chop at left is: Showa ___ year The hand-stamped date is
difficult to read, but it certainly was applied during the occupation of Malaya by Japan.
There was no Greater Japan after their surrender in 1945.

Japanese pornographic banknote parodies

The Japanese also used pornographic photographs on their banknote parodies to catch the
attention of the Chinese soldiers and patriots. Two are reported to have been disseminated
in Chekiang Province. They were first reported in The China Weekly Review, April
13, 1946 which identified them as "Army Return certificates." The photographs
and the text are inconsistent. The first propaganda banknote appears to be imitations of
the Farmers Bank of China 1 chiao (10 cents) note of 1937 depicting a nude girl from
the waist up. The second note may be the Central Bank of China 1 yuan note of 1936 or
5 fen (5 cents) note of 1939 showing a nude girl sitting on a floor.

The text is identical on both notes:

I am constantly looking forward to your return. You are still fighting the war of
resistance. If you continue to fight, you will die in the field! Come back and listen to
my heart.

Ban Shigeo, a technician at the Japanese Army's 9th Technical Research Institute wrote
a slim history of the Japanese WWII Noborito Research Institute entitled: Rikugun
Noborito Kenkyujo no shinjitsu (The Truth About the Army Noborito Research Institute),
in 2001. It was reviewed by Stephen C. Mercado.

The institute was commanded by Lt. Gen. Shinoda, and was involved in projects to
develop poisons, biological agents, and the balloon bombs sent to drift over the western
United States to set forest fires near the end of the Second World War.

Of the Japanese Army's ten numbered institutes, only the 9th Army Technical Research
Institute came under the covert operations section of the Army General Staff's Second
Bureau (Intelligence). Noborito's main customers were the covert operatives trained at the
Army's Nakano School and the counterintelligence officers of the Kempeitai. Noborito
developed equipment for the men of Nakano, where the institutes equipment was often
tested before deployment.

One wartime project was the counterfeiting of the currency used by Chiang Kai-shek's
regime with the idea of flooding the area held by Nationalist China, causing economic
upheaval, undermining confidence in the Nationalist regime, destroying the economy and
ending the Chinese resistance. The Noborito Research Institute printed the currency,
members of the Nakano School took the counterfeit notes to China, and then Imperial
Japanese Army intelligence units worked with Shanghai's notorious crime gangs to
distribute the currency.

One Type of 5 Yuan Chinese Banknote Counterfeited by the Japanese

More information about this counterfeiting operation became known in 2015. The Asahi
Shimbun stated that the Imperial Japanese Army used a private company to produce
counterfeit banknotes of China. 279 sheets, each about 30 centimeters square, were found
at the Tomoegawa Companys paper mill in Shizuoka. The armys Noborito institute
in Kawasaki had placed an order for the sheets with the Tokyo-based company. The sheets
showed watermarks of a profile of Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese revolutionary and founding
father of the Republic of China. They also contain silk fibers. These features are
identical to those of a 5-yuan banknote that was widely circulated in the Republic of
China at that time. Other sheets found at the mill had watermarks of the Temple of Heaven,
a historic structure in Beijing, that appeared on a different kind of 5-yuan bill back
then.

A former Imperial Japanese Army officer who was in charge of the counterfeiting project
claimed that Japan had created fake bills worth 4 billion yuan starting in 1939. It is
believed that the private company was used because the Army institute was unable to make
the banknotes in the bulk required. The civilian-made sheets were produced between August
1940 and July 1941. The workers ensured the bills looked authentic by checking the
sophistication of the watermarks and the amount of silk fibers used.

Originally, authentic banknotes used in the Republic of China were printed in Hong Kong
using technology from the United States and Britain. The machines and original plates to
print the bills in Hong Kong were confiscated and taken to the institute after Japan
occupied Hong Kong in 1941.

A second version of what is apparently the same story says that the Japanese forged the
currency of Nationalist China during 1941 to 1945 using inks and plates (and presumably
paper) seized from Chinese banks in Kowloon. The inspiration for this ploy came from
Lieutenant-Colonel Iwakuro Hideo, 8th Section, Army GHQ, who was a graduate of the Nakano
School for espionage according to Louis Allen, "Nakano School for spies," World
War Investigator, Vol. 1, No. 12, 1989.

At the end of the war, the United States secretly employed some of the counterfeiters
and installed them at the Yokosuka naval base. They continued to forge currency and
documents to support American agent operations in Communist China, North Korea, and the
Soviet Far East. This story first came to light when Ariga Tsutao, a former member of the
current Japan Defense Agency and a noted authority on the Imperial Japanese
Militarys intelligence community, made the allegation.

There were reports in 1943 of the Japanese flooding China with large sums of
counterfeit Bank of China currency notes. Reports from Kweilin indicate that 10 billion
dollars in forged currency were introduced into China. It is interesting to note that
American agents thought the report was exaggerated and recommended that a figure of 100
million dollars be specified instead. In a later letter to the Secretary of the Treasury,
the sum is further reduced to 10 million dollars. The same letter reports that the
Japanese have counterfeited US dollars, Hong Kong dollars, and British sterling. Other
experts such as C. M. Nielsen told me that the Japanese government did not always sponsor
the counterfeiting, but they would often stand by and allow private counterfeiters to
wreak havoc on the Chinese economy.

It is likely that other German and Japanese propaganda banknotes will surface in the
coming years. These are all that are known at the moment. Readers with comments or
additional information are encouraged to write to the author
at sgmbert@hotmail.com.